The Beehive!

Alright, so I've got the bug (no pun), read some books, watched some videos... now what? Now I need to get my future bees a home! A Langstroth hive is the most common hive used in America. It was created back in 1852 by Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth. It allows beekeepers to inspect the hives by pulling individual frames out of the boxes.  Before, beekeepers used a Skep Hive which is the cute little basket type hive you see with the tiny hole at the bottom where the bees went inside. It was so much harder to manage bees using this type of hive.

Traditional beekeepers will house their surplus honey in honey supers and use extractors and centrifuges to get it into bottles. Well, my partner and I decided that we wanted to go a different route. Neither of us have great backs, so we weren't really interested in lifting heavy boxes of honey and disturbing the bees to get it from them. A new type of honey extraction was invented called The Flow™ Hive. It really amped up our interest in beekeeping. It allows the honey to flow directly from the hive using special honey frames. We got on board and ordered a complete hive. Many beekeepers are old school. They like the way they do things and don't really like too much change. I discovered through online bee communities that they are very skeptical of this "new fangled device" but I'm all for innovation and wanted to give it a whirl.

Check it out!

This was first offered through an Indiegogo campaign and raised more money than any other kickstarter type of fundraiser. They knew it would take a bit to get the manufacturing going and since Winter was coming, I didn't mind waiting at all. It took six months to arrive, but February came, and, as promised, we received our woodenware for our hive. The quality of the cedar was fantastic and smelled so good!

The building of the hives is something I'd never done before (obviously) but I'm no stranger to using power tools. Bring it on, I say! Well, there is more to it than meets the eye. You must make sure your boxes are square! I'd recommend using a T-square of some kind to make sure your corners are 90º. I had also purchased a few Medium boxes to add to the single deep (for brood) and Flow™ honey super that comes with the Flow™ complete hive. When you live in colder temperatures, you'll need more than just one brood box for them to survive over winter. Living in the Chicago area, we definitely fit into that category! So, I got busy building!

The bottom is a stand that has a side caddy for frames to rest while you are inspecting your hive. It's also about a foot off the ground which will protect the hive from critters like raccoons and skunks. These are three medium boxes with frames added in the top box. I also built the Flow™ hive but had my mentor help with the gabled roof. That was a little tricky for me.

Pretty, right? Well, we're not done yet. Cedar is a pretty wood but it still needs to be protected from nasty weather. Most beehives are made of pine and will be painted. Cedar is a little different and it called for Tung Oil to protect it. Only stain the OUTSIDE. Leave the inside to the bees. It has a strong scent to it so make sure you give it a good long time to air out, the bees won't like it. You should also make sure you sand the boxes or use steel wool before staining. It'll sink into the wood better and will better protect it. I set up my garage for a couple days to stain all of my boxes. It went on very easily and pretty quick. I bought my Tung Oil thru Bee Thinking since it was 100% pure Tung Oil and was nice and thick.

After a few days I brought them inside to dry even more. 

How pretty are these boxes now? The hive looks gorgeous! The hive consists of a few extra parts as well. 

Under the roof and above the top box is an inner cover. Its main purpose is to give the bees a stopping point for building comb. Once the inner cover is on, they don't tend to build comb any higher than that. It can also be used as a feeder. The hole in the middle of the box can be round as well and large enough for a mason jar filled with sugar water to be inserted into. Pretty cool!

The bottom board that sits just below the bottom hive box acts as a landing board for the bees flying home and an entrance for them. There are different kinds of bottom boards and of course it's a personal preference as to which ones are used. There are solid, screened, and slotted bottom boards. I use a screened bottom board which helps with ventilation and pest control. The screen mesh is small enough so the bees don't get stuck under it but large enough so that pests like small hive beetles and the dreaded varroa mites can fall through. There is generally a piece of corflute (material of all of the political yard signs you see) under the screen. You can put mineral oil or even pilled fabrics (like handi wipes) on top of the corflute for those pests to get stuck in and die. You don't want your hive overrun with pests! We'll get to pests a little later.

April came around and our Flow™ frames arrived! They were so neat and I played with them as soon as I got the box open. There are 6 of these frames that fill the Flow™ honey super. We won't be using these until the honey flow starts this summer. It generally starts in June and goes into August. I am not sure if they will have any surplus honey for us this year as we want them to have enough for Winter before we take any. Next year, though, we should get a bunch!

So that's the hive! What's missing you ask? Oh, the bees! Where do you get them? Well, there are a few options for you out there. Local apiaries are the best option because you'll be getting bees that are local and used to your weather. There are also online apiaries that sell them, but not all of them ship so make sure you look before you buy. But, if you want free bees, look to trees and all kinds of places where honeybees will swarm! You can catch them and hive them with a bit of work. They will cluster in a big bunch surrounding and protecting their queen. They can be in a hollow of a tree, but they will hang from anywhere they choose.

They do not live in the big nests you see in trees or on houses. Those are usually hornets or wasps in the big paper nests.

This was a bald face hornets nest that was on our house. They built this in only a few days! Pretty amazing work! They are not honeybees though, so it had to go!

Once you order your bees, then you have a little more preparation to do before they arrive. That is where I will leave you today. My next update will be about bringing your bees home and installing them into your hive. Thanks for reading! Please leave comments, I'd love to hear from you.

Until next time, bee kind. 🐝

Welcome to the World of Beekeeping

Welcome to the world of beekeeping!

I am a first year beekeeper and cannot wait to document this journey and share it with all of you. 

First off, to give you a little background, I am a pet sitter and absolutely love my job. One of my clients keeps bees in his backyard and I was always intrigued by the hives. I finally got up the courage to ask him if he would teach me or mentor me on the ways of beekeeping. He was more than happy to, then invited me to his home to check out his hives. I was beyond thrilled. 

So, let's get started!

The first thing he did was teach me a few things with some basic tools. This is a smoker and it's used to calm the bees before opening the hive. Some say that the smoke masks the alarm pheromone that bees give off if they feel threatened. Others say it mimics an actual fire and sends the bees into the hive to eat some food in case they need to abandon the hive to safety. The joke is if you ask 5 beekeepers a question you'll get 10 answers. Everyone has their way of doing things and that's the way it should be. But the number one rule is to always be protected from stings. I'm wearing a vented bee jacket so it has breathability versus the cotton jackets that are extremely hot. The veil, or hood, is zippered to the jacket so there is no access for the bees to get to your face. You do NOT want to get stung in your face. If they get in there, you've either not zipped properly or your suit has been breached! Find the hole!

We smoked the hive and pulled out a frame from the hive box. Hive boxes come in three sizes - A Deep which is pictured here and is the largest. It's mostly used for brood boxes but those who are strong will use these boxes for honey also. They can get up to 90 pounds if full of honey. A Medium which is the middle size is also used for both brood and honey. A full Medium with honey will be about 50-60 pounds. A Shallow which is the smallest and mostly used for honey (they also call them honey supers) can weigh around 40 pounds when full of honey.

He showed me the different cells that contained either honey, pollen, nectar or brood (baby bees). Pollen can be any color of the rainbow, it's gorgeous! It will also determine the color of your honey. 

I know, right?! Bees are so cool!

This frame didn't have too many bees on it. Sometimes they are completely covered and you can't see any part of the cells, just wall to wall bees. They tend to build comb (that dark stuff on the bottom) if they have extra space. It's sometimes referred to as burr or brace comb which is basically wax comb where there shouldn't be anything. You can easily clean it up (shave it off) with a hive tool.

The hive tool is sharp so bee careful! It can also have a hook at one end, like this one, that helps pull frames out of the hive while you are inspecting. You must be careful not to squish any bees while inspecting. They will get very upset and you really don't want to disturb them any more than you already are. Keep inspections quick time wise, but don't make quick movements as they may take it as a threatening move. Make sure to pull frames out slowly as well. You don't want to lose your queen!

This is a honey super. It contains only frames of honey. Hives can have either 8 or 10 frames in a box. All of these hives are 10 frame boxes. We are using an 8 frame hive unlike my mentor who uses 10 frame hives. The boxes will be much lighter for us to lift. You can paint them any color you want too if you're feeling creative. The brown stuff in the middle is called propolis or bee glue. If bees feel like there are holes in places they don't want them, they will seal it with propolis. It's incredibly sticky and thick as it's created by tree buds or sap. It gives crazy glue serious competition! It also has many health benefits and people will eat it daily. Crazy, right?

This is one frame of delicious honey. You need to take care and only hold the corners of the frame or you will squish the honey comb. Tim puts all of the frames in a rubbermaid container so other bees or wasps won't be attracted to it and rob it. He then takes the container to a place with an extractor and a centrifuge to get the honey off the frames and into bottles. Unfortunately, I didn't go with him to do all of that so I have no photos to show. I just know that when he gave me a bottle of the honey, it was so delicious. Store honey can't hold a candle to local honey. Buy local if you can get it!

It was a fantastic day and since that moment I was hooked. I wanted to learn everything I could about honeybees before I got my own colony. It would've been irresponsible in my opinion to bring them home and not know how to care for them.

I did nothing but read for nearly 10 months! This was one of my favorite books. It was detailed and had step by step instructions on things. I would highly recommend it to new beekeepers.

This is another favorite.

However, this is the mother of all books if you want history, biology and so much more. All I can tell you is read, read, read and read some more before you venture into beekeeping. You can also check out YouTube for a gazillion hours of beekeeping videos and webinars. There is SO much to learn! Join a local bee club as well and find a mentor. There are tons of backyard beekeepers out there with a wealth of knowledge just waiting to share it with someone who wants to learn.

I hope you enjoyed this first entry. I will be posting pics and stories of my own preparation, hive building, and bringing home my first colony of bees. Stay tuned!